“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict“-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Permit me to add my voice on the ongoing massacre of women, children, and armless civilians in Palestine. In my thought, it is not about who triggers the present massacre of the Palestinians , but it is time to talk about the 76 years of massacre of women, children, and the armless civilians of Palestine by the state of Israel which is being watched helplessly by the entire world.

Before 1948, the Jews worldwide lived predominantly outside Palestine.They lived predominantly in eastern and central Europe, with significant communities in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the America. The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict began with the forceful establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine in 1948.The conflict continues up to the present day on various occasions at various levels.

Palestine was under the Ottoman empire until the 17th century when it fell under the mandate of British soon after the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, was seen as the root cause of the Israeli- Palestinian crisis. Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the tiny population of the Jewish people” in Palestine. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November, 1917 from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the then Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

From the 1917 declaration to 1948 creation of the state of Israel, It took 31years of preparation for its to happened. In between those years there were massive migrations of the Jewish community from all over the world to Palestine in preparation for the creation of the state of Israel. There was a United Nations “partitioning arrangement” before the creation of the state of Israel which divided the then Palestinian territory between the Jewish community and the Arab community in Palestine.

The “partition” came up on the 28th day of November 1947. The Palestinian territory before the UN “partition” was made up of 63% population of Palestine Arabs and 37% Jews. However, the Jewish community which had 37% of then population of Palestine was given 55% of the territory by the partitioning, and the Arab community which had 63% of the population was given 42% of the territory and the remaining 3% including Jerusalem was left out as an international zone. The Zionists at that time accepted the plan although the Zionist leaders did not accept as final the borders it laid down for Israel. They however aimed for more territory. On the other hand, the Palestinian Arabs rejected the partitioning as being totally unfair.

Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 the world has not seen peace in the area. It has been 76 years of conflicts now one after another on perennial basis. The state of Israel has fought several major wars with Palestine/Arabs and series of minor conflicts within the period. There were the Palestinian intifadas. Intifadas – meaning “uprisings” in Arabic. It is the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The first intifada lasted from 1987 to 1993, and the second began in 2000.

After the creation of the state of Israel it took the United Nations 26 years from 1948 to 1974 to have a resolution which agreed that the best way to solve the crisis between Israelis and Palestinians is to have two independent states co- existing side- by- side in the area as against the present arrangement where the Palestinians are under the state of Israel. The 1974 resolution had it that there should be the independent state of Israel for Jews and the independent state of Palestine for the Palestinian Arabs. 49 years after that, that was from 1974 to 2023 the hypocrite world has continued to watch helplessly while women, children and armless civilians of Palestine are being massacred every now and then.

Several resolutions by the UN on the Palestinian struggle remains unimplementable. Why is it so difficult to implement the resolutions? Who is against the implementation of two states solution? Martin Luther King Jr., once said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Late Nelson Mandela, once said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians”.

In the interest of justice, the entire “world” must wake up and go beyond its usual condemnations and objections to the occasional massacre of women, children and the armless civilians of the Palestine. The United Nations as well as the international community should and or must implement its two state solutions on Israelis- Palestinian conflict. It is apt to remind the world that when injustice reaches its “zenith” there is certainly no stability up there.

May the entire world realize that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The post Israel vs. Palestine: The Hypocrisy Of Two State Solution -By Nurudeen Dauda first appeared on Opinion Nigeria.